Echo
by peanutbutterer
Summary: Spoilers for First Strike. JohnElizabeth.


----

_Footfalls echo in the memory  
Down the passage which we did not take  
Towards the door we never opened_

T.S. Eliot

----

The first time she manages to latch onto consciousness she becomes aware of a calloused hand holding hers. The bed is firm beneath her and a scratchy pillow cushions her heavy head.

A soft voice greets her, almost cautiously, and asks her how she feels.

"Tired," she tells the figure leaning over her, his face indiscernible against the harsh backdrop of fluorescent light. "Sore."

"The doctor says you're going to be okay." His hand squeezes hers lightly and the man leans closer. "You're going to be okay, Elizabeth."

Before she's able to ask his name she drifts back off to sleep.

--

"You were in an explosion," the young doctor tells her, knuckles white as she grips the edge of her clipboard. "The trauma your brain suffered was severe. You're very lucky to be alive."

Her head swims with fears and questions, and she has to blink hard against tears.

"Memory loss is a predictable side-effect of such extreme swelling. You're lucky," she emphasizes again, "you regained cognitive thought at all. It's a miracle really."

"Okay, Doc," the man beside her intervenes. "She gets it."

The doctor nods, her eyes telegraphing a silent apology. "Get some rest, Dr. Weir." She places a comforting hand on Elizabeth's forearm and squeezes briefly.

When the doctor is gone he speaks again. "Her bedside manner's not much better than yours."

It's her confusion, she thinks, that causes his gaze to drop to the floor.

--

Nurses and unfamiliar uniforms bustle about the room, machines beep and hum, but the only sound she hears is the echo of his voice.

"2007?" she repeats.

He nods.

"And I was only in a coma for five weeks?"

"I wouldn't say _only_, but yes."

"I don't," she falters, twisting her fingers together. "The last thing I remember I was at the university. I was giving a lecture, and…" she trails off as the vision fades. "Where am I?"

"An underground bunker in Colorado Springs."

The grey cement walls seem to press air from the room and her breathing suddenly becomes labored. When she regains control her words are only a whisper. "The explosion – was it nuclear? Did the world…"

"No, not the whole world," he answers just as softly. "Only ours."

--

This is his tenth visit in twelve days and she thinks he's doing it on purpose – that perhaps he believes if he doles out information only one small dose at a time she'll be more likely to accept what she's hearing as true.

It isn't working.

"Aliens?" She drags her gaze from the steady rhythm of her heart monitor. "I was an astronaut?"

He shakes his head with a hint of sadness, just as he seems to do everything else. "You were an explorer, Elizabeth. A pioneer." His eyes follow his fingers as they trace tiny patterns on her bed's metal guardrail. "You were a legend."

Her chest feels heavy and her throat tight and small. She was a part of something important somehow, somewhere.

She should remember.

--

She's treated to frequent visits by a man named Rodney who tells her stories of their life in Pegasus; about a magical city, about adventures and narrow escapes and terrible dangers. He puffs up with pride as he regales her with his heroics, brilliant saves, and life-altering discoveries. She learns about her friends there, about Teyla and Ronon and all the people that stayed behind.

She learns about Carson, and all the people they lost.

--

When she's finally released, she's set up in a condo in Colorado Springs. She doesn't ask what happened to her place in Georgetown, to her job at the university, her political aspirations, or the last five years.

Stepping gingerly over boxes (of what, she's entirely unsure) she makes it to her door on the third ring.

"John," she says as she swings the heavy wood open to reveal him on her stoop. "Hi."

He holds up a brown bag and she notes the grease stains that have formed along its edges. "I thought you might not be up for cooking quite yet."

She's not. She's not up for anything, really, except sitting against the wall, toes digging into the carpet, staring absently at the chips in the white paint and wondering if she's not trying hard enough – if there's something she can do to make herself remember.

Wondering what she's going to do with herself now.

She flashes John a smile and she steps aside. "My hero."

--

She stops beside a fountain and fishes through her purse for loose change. It seems silly to be doing something as trivial as making a wish, but she's come to a point in her life where she'd be remiss to let any opportunity pass her by. She's got plenty of wishes.

The nickel makes a tiny splash as it breaks the surface of the water, and she's almost certain she smells the salt of a distant ocean.

--

"You don't talk about Atlantis."

John shrugs and takes another bite of his ice cream.

"Do you miss it?" she persists.

He looks up to meet her gaze. The darkness in his eyes is there again; the one that lurks just below the surface. It's a distance that separates them that she can't seem to find her way across. "You would too."

She thinks she already does.

--

It doesn't take long to arrange her new apartment. The place came sparsely furnished and she discovers that it suits her. She likes the open space and thinks, as she steps out on her balcony to join John, that she won't be spending much time cooped up inside anyway.

She hands him a glass of water. "Thanks for the help. I really…" she trails off, unsure of what exactly to say next. She's woken up in a world she hardly knows and this stranger has helped her to find some solid ground. "I really appreciate everything you've done."

He nods in acknowledgment and brushes the sentiment off, as, she's learned, he's prone to do. "Want to grab some lunch?"

She steps up to the rail beside him and gives him a look. "Do we have to have turkey sandwiches again?"

"You realize when you say things like that it makes me want to force you to eat them until you truly appreciate their greatness, right?"

"Do we _get_ to have turkey sandwiches again?"

John raises an eyebrow. "If you're lucky."

She wonders if luck has anything to do with it.

--

From what she's been told, when the Asurian splinter had evacuated them and Atlantis took its final breath there were two directions to go. Her injury had made the decision for her.

"Why didn't you stay behind?" she asks Rodney as they stand in a queue at the coffee shop. "If there was a choice, I mean."

He looks at her askance. "Back there? And live like a dirt-caked nomad for the rest of my life? No thank you." He shakes his head and lowers his voice. "Tava may sound like Java but the similarities end there."

She laughs, a little disbelieving. "You gave it all up for coffee?"

He shrugs. "And electricity."

--

She spends more and more time at Stargate Command. It's a futile attempt to trigger her memories, but she can't seem to find the harm in it.

After an hour of sitting in Rodney's lab and distracting him from "crucially important work," she finds herself in an office, thumbing through a book on the Ancient language.

The symbols are meaningless, and that means more to her than she cares to admit. She still doesn't know who she became – who she's become – but she's starting to know _of_ her and she longs to know more.

To find her. To become her.

The alarm sounds an off-world activation and she lays the book aside. John's team should be returning home and she wants to be in the control room when they arrive through the gate.

--

"Dr. Weir."

She turns at the voice and finds herself face to face with a cheerful looking redhead. Elizabeth's eyes flit over the uniform and stop on the single silver stripe. "Lieutenant." She nods.

"It's good to see you up and around, ma'am," the woman says, her smile bright and genuine. "We were all very worried about you."

Elizabeth's lips purse and she's completely at a loss. This woman must have been a teammate, an expedition member, maybe even a friend; but… she's still just a stranger.

"I appreciate that."

The lieutenant hesitates over her next statement. "I, uh," she shifts her weight, "I never did thank you. We lost a lot and we can never go back, but it was still the best experience of my life. I owe that to you."

Elizabeth's chest tightens. "It was my pleasure."

--

John takes her to a department store. She's slowly building a wardrobe from scratch and he doesn't seem to want to leave her alone. It isn't as if she can't function by herself, or even that she particularly needs assistance, but for some reason she can't make herself decline an offer of his company.

She steps out of the dressing room and John leans forward in his chair. He's studying her again and she wonders, not for the first time, what it is he's searching for.

"I like red on you," he says in a voice that's thick and floats heavily in the air.

Her breath hitches slightly, catching in her throat and sticking. She tries to focus on her reflection instead of his words, but her answer is still softer than she intends. "You know, I do too."

She thinks, as her eyes meet his in the mirror, that somehow his insistence on being around her is as much for _him_ as it is for _her_.

--

She makes no effort to contact Simon. John tells her she never spoke of him and Rodney asks, "Simon who?" so she takes that to mean things had ended somewhere in (what John's taken to calling) "the abyss."

She can't find it in herself to be upset about it - of all the things she's lost, she's surprised to discover she misses him the least.

--

It's oh two hundred hours and her head is pounding. She's sitting up in her bed with what has to be a fifth mug of tea clutched in her hand and a stack of reports thicker than _War and Peace_ lying open in her lap.

The echo of a Scottish brogue chides her for not taking care of herself as she slips slowly off to sleep.

--

She dreams of Atlantis.

Tall, reedy towers sprout from the water, buoyed on the surface of the ocean like a giant floating crown. Glass windows of all shapes and colors filter sunlight as it streams into a vaulted room.

A tall man with thick, wild hair grins at a golden skinned woman standing next to him on a balcony.

She wakes with a smile on her lips, but then frowns. She doesn't know if her mind is painting Rodney's stories or if she's actually remembering.

--

John compliments her new office as he leans casually against its door. She's been reinstated as an in-house negotiator and it feels really, really good. The walls are cold and sterile but the role is somehow comfortable and worn.

"Now all I need are some windows."

He steps aside to let her pass and eases in step beside her. "At least you'll be spending some time off-world."

"Yes," she agrees. "I imagine that will be a frightful experience."

He studies her as they walk. "You aren't really scared are you?"

Deathly, she thinks, but John doesn't need to know everything. "When I have you to protect me? Not a chance." She clasps her hands in front of her. "Though I am a little worried about Rodney wielding a gun."

John grins. "Now there's a valid fear."

--

It isn't until she and John touch the first time (an accidental brush in a crowded hallway) that she realizes they _don't_. She's never had such a close friend that is so physically distant and she wonders at the reason.

Several possibilities flit through her mind and she allows a selfish moment to consider that perhaps he doesn't touch her because he wants to so badly.

--

"Was I dating anyone?"

Rodney barely pauses before continuing to raise his fork. "You? No." He scoops another bite. "When would you have had the time?"

John pokes at his fries and takes another sip of his beer.

"Though I did manage to find the time to win a few hearts," Rodney continues. "Well, one heart mostly, but I find that a person of my intelligence is very efficient in multitasking. I'm the type of person that can save the world and be home in time for a dinner date."

Elizabeth can't help her frown. "I wasn't?"

"Well, there was that Mike guy," he says with a wave of his hand. "But you broke it off before it even really started. You didn't think you could be a leader and have a relationship. Something about confusing priorities or some other psychobabble garbage."

Rodney continues to speak but she's no longer listening. Mike. She refuses to admit that the name causes something inside her to fall in disappointment.

She avoids John's gaze.

--

Since she woke up, her life has been a whirl of confusion and emotions and she still hasn't managed to stop the spinning. She's battled with denial, anger, sorrow, depression – a disturbingly clinical list of traditional responses to loss.

But there's something else she's feeling and she's not so sure it's textbook. She's also not sure it isn't just a response to everything else, a kernel of hope to cling to in the center of a maelstrom.

It's this last bit of doubt that worries her the most.

--

"You don't have to baby-sit me, you know," she says one evening as they browse the new releases. Against her own instruction, her arms fold tightly across her chest.

The woman to her left glances sideways and Elizabeth lowers her voice. "It's just a gap in my memory. It's not as if I've mentally reverted to an eight year old."

She doesn't mean to sound so harsh, so bitter, and she regrets it when she hears her words formed out loud and watches him turn away. John's been nothing but kind, understanding and attentive since she woke up and she truly is grateful for his support.

She regrets it even more when she calls the next day and his phone goes straight to voicemail.

--

Elizabeth turns the corner to John's office, a mug of coffee burning each hand. It's an obvious and pitifully inadequate peace offering, but she's willing to swallow her pride if it means she can restore things to how they used to be. The last week has been… off. John has woven so flawlessly into her life that he's become a part of it. A part she's come to rely on.

"… as well as can be expected," says a voice from the speakers on his laptop. "You need not worry about us, John."

He registers her presence and looks up, hitting a button on the computer to mute it as he does.

Elizabeth stops at the side of his desk. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, thinking it better to start with the mundane. "How did you get a recording of Teyla?" she asks, handing a mug to John.

"Caldwell took a camera on his last supply run and – wait," he stops, coffee poised at his lips. "How did you know it was Teyla?"

--

"And this?" Rodney asks excitedly, pointing to a line of text.

"Knowledge follows wonder," she reads, just able to keep her fingers from fidgeting. They've been at this now for over an hour and she's desperate to know what else she's regained – to know if the flashes she's seeing are memories and if the things she recalls are real. "I can read Ancient, Rodney. Let's try something else."

Her pleading look is all it takes to make him close the book and stand. "Come on. You can come to my lab I'll quiz you on the names of the scientists."

She shakes her head. "Rodney, I've already met most of them and… wait, they've stopped responding to 'hey you?'"

Rodney scoffs as he drags her out the door. "It's not as if I have _time_ to bother with trivialities."

Elizabeth smiles. She remembers that very well.

--

One week later the doctor gives her the "miraculous recovery" speech. It's much like the "miraculously alive" speech, and as she lets the words sink in Elizabeth finds herself lost in thought.

Her memory is coming back. Things are still half-fuzzy and half-clear, but she finally feels like she _knows_ things again. She knows what it's like to step onto the precipice of a brand new galaxy, knows the smell of Atlantis' endless ocean and the chill of the balcony railing beneath her fingertips.

She knows the way her heart stopped when Koyla backed her toward the gate. Knows the guilt she felt as she watched Michael writhe, and the tears she shed over Carson's absent grave.

In the dark of the night, when she's trying to sleep, she wonders if maybe she was better off not knowing Atlantis at all. But in the next moment she pictures the balcony and the view of the city before her. It's then she understands that the woman was right. Lieutenant Cadman, she puts a name to the face.

She would rather live with the echoes of pain than have no feelings at all.

--

The fountain is ten feet behind her before she realizes that she passed it, all coins still accounted for. She pauses a moment before turning around.

The smell of the ocean is thick and strong in her memory and she smiles at the feeling of warmth that it brings. She reaches into her purse and retrieves a fistful of change, tossing it in with a chorus of splashes.

Her mind is on its way back, but she still has some wishes left to fulfill.

She dials her phone and smiles when he picks up on the first ring. "Dinner?"

--

Elizabeth leans back against the cushions of the couch and sneaks a glance at John.

She's given up on paying attention to the movie, and decided instead to catalogue her newly recovered memories of John. She can visualize them together in Atlantis, feel the warmth of him beside her, see the way their eyes connected, and recall vividly the sleepless nights spent when his team was off world.

They're pieces of a puzzle, she thinks, fractions of a whole. And suddenly she's sure that something is missing. Everything she remembers, she knows, tells her there's another element she simply can't recall.

"I'm not sure they're all back," she says abruptly.

John twists to face her and frowns. "Your memories?"

"Some things are still fuzzy."

"Fuzzy is better than nonexistent. It'll probably just take more time." He smiles then, an expression so genuine it seems inherently un-John. "You're already much more yourself."

"Yeah?"

He nods. "Yeah." He looks down, hesitating a moment before dropping a hand on top of hers. The warmth of his touch spreads through her and the shadow in his eyes lightens. "I'm glad to have you back, Elizabeth."

Her heart pounds in her ears and she's all but convinced. Maybe all she needs is a trigger; like hearing Teyla's voice – a stimulus to revive the memory.

With only a moment's pause she leans over, closing the distance between them and pressing her lips to his.

In that instant she knows.

She knows his lips are soft and warm and he smells like fabric softener. She knows her relationship with John was never the one she suspected.

--

It's days before she sees him again after fleeing from his home. This time it's her who has been dodging the calls.

He catches her by the arm when she tries to slip past him in a hallway and he doesn't mince his words. "You kissed me."

His obvious confusion tugs at her chest and she knows she can't keep avoiding this. She sighs at her admission. "I thought we were together." Her eyes track a marine as he disappears around a corner. "You know, before," she adds quietly.

"Together?" he repeats, releasing his hold.

She shrugs and looks down the corridor toward her office, wishing she had a means of escape, a distraction, or at the very least a better explanation. The questions in her head are jumbled and confusing and piled up on top of each other.

He gestures to the space between them and hesitates. "We weren't."

"I," she begins, then trials off. She's gathered that much herself. It's the rest of it that worries her. "I really screwed this up. You've been so wonderful and I completely misinterpreted."

He starts to say something but stops.

She tries to keep herself from wishing for something that was never really hers.

"You weren't misinterpreting," he says finally.

Her eyes find his and she watches him, wondering if she knows what he's saying – if he even knows.

"I want – I've always wanted, but you…" He drags a frustrated hand through his hair. "I'm no good at this."

"No," she agrees.

He raises an eyebrow and some of the tension releases from his shoulders. "Look, Elizabeth, we weren't together."

She shakes her head. "Yes, I know that now."

"You have to understand that the city was everything to you, and our positions..." he trails off again, this time with a shrug. "Rodney was right. You wouldn't have had time. I wouldn't have had time."

It's the disappointment in his voice that makes her more bold. "And with Atlantis gone?"

"I was a stranger. Everything that had happened between us, everything that had drawn us so close didn't exist for you anymore."

She speaks slowly, afraid to draw the pieces together. "And now?"

"And now," he offers a lopsided grin, "now you're not returning my calls."

A warmth spreads through her, but she controls it, forces herself to ask the next question. "And what would happen if I did?"

He faces her squarely. "Do you want the long version or the short version?"

His intensity causes her breath to quicken. "How about we fast-forward?"

He reaches out to brush a hand across her cheek. "Elizabeth," he draws her name out in a low whisper, "this is going to change a lot of things."

In response, she curls her hands around his jacket, tucking her fingers under the lapels, and tilts her face back to see his. Then she stretches up to kiss him.

Eventually, she whispers, "I know."

--

--

She tugs John to a halt as they pass by the fountain, silently handing him a nickel as she takes one for herself. When he looks at her askance she merely shakes her head.

She can't smell the ocean or taste salt on her tongue, but the scent of pine is crisp and fresh and it triggers new memories all on its own.

She grabs his hand firmly in hers as she tosses the coin and makes a wish.


End file.
